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14 September 2012

As it happens frequently in the Muslim world, another manifestation of rage already took several lives, including that of American ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, not related (of course) in any way to the Rage Boy and his peculiar ways to demonstrate his sensitivity. And the murderous display of sensitivity is not over yet.

This time the cause for the eruption of rage is accompanied by an accusing finger pointing directly at Jews. Not that the previous outbreaks of the disease were Jew-free, some Muslim thinker in every single case eventually mentioned Jews being the driving force behind the latest anti-Muslim (Islamophobic, if you will) atrocity. However, the accusations were of a generic character - like in "you and I know that Jews are behind it all, so lest we forget..."

But this time the big, unwashed and accusing finger found a very specific Jew to blame. At least if you believe Fox News article with an overly long headline:

The headline is long for a purpose: it succeeds to convey the direct link between the “Innocence of Muslims” movie and the tragic fate of American diplomat(s). Step one is over and done with, quite effectively.

Step two is disposed of in the first paragraph of the article:

An Israeli filmmaker based in California went into hiding Tuesday after his movie attacking Islam's Prophet Muhammad sparked angry assaults by ultra-conservative Muslims on U.S. missions in Egypt and Libya, where a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed.

Besides stressing again that link that was so admirably formed in the headline, the main and immediate item of knowledge you gain that the filmmaker behind that Islamophobic atrocity is an Israeli. And if you are still harboring a doubt, here comes a clincher:

Bacile, a California real estate developer who identifies himself as an Israeli Jew, said he believes the movie will help his native land by exposing Islam's flaws to the world.

And if even the clincher isn't enough, here is a control shot:

"Islam is a cancer, period," he said repeatedly, his solemn voice thickly accented.

Thickly accented voice: sure, out of 7 billion world population less, say, 350 million native English speakers (estimates vary from 275 to 450 million), thick accent definitely points to a Hebrew man (out of what - 15 million Jews?). No contest. And it doesn't require a genius to agree that AP scribe's expertise in world's accents is second to none.

Helping his "native land": of course it's obvious that igniting another bout of Muslim rage against Christians and Jews will cause no end of benefits to this land. No argument, you would agree.

But the strongest point is that Mr Bacile himself says he is Jewish, and not just Jewish - an (ex)-Israeli as well, so why argue at all?

The anti-Muslim film implicated in mob protests against U.S. diplomatic missions in the Mideast received logistical help from a man once convicted of financial crimes and featured actors who complained that their inflammatory dialogue was dubbed in after filming.The self-proclaimed director of "Innocence of Muslims" initially claimed a Jewish and Israeli background. But others involved in the film said his statements were contrived as evidence mounted that the film's key player was a southern Californian Coptic Christian with a checkered past.

So much for the thick accent, the hatred of Islam and the ready confession to being Jewish...

And you know, if I were a fan of conspiracy theories, which I am not, I would mention several leads to a conspiracy of (at least) one man. First of all, Copts were, and today are more than before, a persecuted minority in Egypt. Any opportunity to drive an edge between the Muslim and the Christian world will be welcome to some of them, even by such crude means as that movie (you can still watch a piece of it here to judge for yourself).

Then - the relationships between Copts and Jews were never easy. Far as I am from blaming all Copts in antisemitism, some bad feelings do exist. It is not completely out of the question that Sam Bacile, aka Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, Nicola Bacily, Erwin Salameh etc, is harboring a dislike (let's use this term for lack of better info) of Jooz as a second-priority issue.

Thus: what could be more pleasant to Mr Nakoula/Bacile than to kill two birds with one stone? To cause another week or two of anti-Christian riots in the Muslim world, and, as a bonus, to turn both Muslims (well, they don't require a lot of turning, the truth be told) and Christians against these pesky Jews - what could be better?

How do you like them conspiracy chicken? Well, in time we'll know more about the perpetrator, I am sure, and possibly will get more answers from the horse's mouth. Meanwhile, it causes me deep satisfaction, somewhat mixed with surprise, to see how The Guardian and Juan Cole came out in defense of the Jooz. I just have to quote the latter:

So, the film was from the beginning a fraud. It was directed by a fraud. It was promoted by a militia trainer. And Nakoula marketed it fraudulently as the work of a fictitious Israeli-American Jewish real estate agent, ‘Sam Bacile,’ and falsely said it had been funded by “a hundred Jewish donors.”The group behind the film, in other words, managed to evoke all the classic themes of anti-Semitism as a way of disguising the Coptic and evangelical network out of which the ‘film’ came. When they weren’t busy picketing Mormons and defaming Muslims they were trying to get Jews killed for their own smears of Islam!

Almost caused me some tears, but they dried up very quickly prior to exit - read the rest for yourself. And then, of course, there is HuffPost...

What remains to review is the message in the headline of the Fox News article we left out so far: the direct link between the murder in Benghazi and the movie. Interesting to mention that CNN, a comparatively left-leaning outfit, on the same day when Fox published the AP article, already knew enough about the Benghazi tragedy to recognize that the protests against the movie were just a convenient cover for what was, most probably, a well organized terrorist act.

On Tuesday night, protesters were outside the consulate in Benghazi, demonstrating against the video "Innocence of Muslims," which reportedly was made in California by a producer whose identity is unclear.Eventually, a group of heavily armed militants "infiltrated the march to start chaos," according to Libyan Deputy Interior Minister Wanis al-Sharif.Initial reports indicate the four-hour assault began around 10 p.m. as attackers pelted the U.S. Consulate complex's main compound with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades . Within 15 minutes, the gunmen entered the building.

Difficult to imagine that Fox News were totally unaware of the above information.

The behavior of Fox News in this affair would be difficult to explain or to understand, if the case is looked upon as a singular occurrence. One can excuse it by referring to a lazy reporter(s) of the usual AP, to an inattentive editor that is ready to drink from this spring of pure and unadulterated goodness called AP, without asking for any corroborating evidence etc.

However, there are some people that trouble themselves to look closer at Fox, and some facts about this staunch supporter of Republican way of life are troublesome indeed.

“Fair and Balanced” is fast becoming more slogan than operating system at Fox News, and nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the way Israel is increasingly being treated and the extent to which anti-Semitism is tolerated as part of the cable channel’s conversation.

Read this article, it poses some interesting questions (and thanks to Michael for the tip).

9
comments:

Dick Stanley
said...

Why pick on Fox News and the Republicans? The famously-leftist Democrat "National" "Public" Radio had exactly the same story. It came from AP, after all. And slipping the Republicans in there is unfair, since they had no known part in the exercise.

Of course they don't vet AP stories. They have to rely on something, since they're all in the business of "cheap scoops." And, so far, I see no monopoly on Israel bashing.

Maybe you should backtrack altogether and try to figure out why this alleged "Israeli Jew" wound up being cited by whoever AP's (probably unidentified) source was in the first place. Probably some Fed, since all news organizations rely on pols and bureaucrats (and cops and bureaucrats) with their well-known penchant for lying,

Of course there's no reason to blame any filmmaker or any news organization for what the loony goat rapers do. That's what these savages are programmed for by their mullahs, every Friday. We're in a war with them and the best we can hope for is that most Muslims are not combatants. Since the Musselmen outnumber us by what, a factor ten? Or worse?

I am not picking at Republicans, of course, in this post. I am indeed picking on Fox, since of all the media Fox is less than others expected to push anti-Israeli drivel. And notice the list of Fox misdeeds in that last article.

Fox Schmox. In an unusually strong move for a lefty rag Tablet has done the footwork to round up the original suspects:

"It all began when the Wall Street Journal and Associated Press published notes from an interview with Sam Bacile, then thought to be the producer behind the film that is said to have been the catalyst for the riots at U.S. embassies in Cairo, Tunisia, Yemen, Iran, and even Israel. Bacile told both the AP and the WSJ that he was an Israeli-American and that he raised $5 million from “100 Jewish donors” for the film."Both the WSJ and AP, in an exercise of stenographic journalism, dutifully published those two details about Bacile’s nationality and his donors’ religions, all without knowing whether Sam Bacile was the individual’s real name or whether he had actually produced the film. In fact, it took the Wall Street Journal an entire day after publishing these details to conduct a records search on whether the name Sam Bacile was even real. (That records search turned up no references to any men in the United States by that name.) By that time, there were already 17,000 Google search results. The other U.S. newspaper giants—the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today—all parroted these details, as did the large city-specific ones."Including, BTW, the Jerusalem Post. And probably other Israeli newspapers I can't read because they write in Hebrew.More at: http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/112248/beware-of-even-numbers?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=419ad88a05-9_15_2012&utm_medium=email